Heat Reclaimer - Magic Heat and other

[derbygreg]

Do you know about these? I was at a customers garage last year and as soon as he lit the stove, the heat reclaimer started cranking out the heat. He had an old smoke dragon, How would one work with an EPA stove?

http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp...10551_10001_28668_-1______?rFlag=true&cFlag=1

I have pictures of the Magic Heat and one available at TSC

 

[Burn-1]

I would think that with an EPA stove you would be asking for condensation.

 

[Shane]

Definately not a good idea. All of the heat that is lost from the EPA stove is needed to ensure proper draft. Those magic heats cool the flue gasses too much and cause creosote build up. On top of that one thing I never understood is that they make the thing so it's female end down and male end up. Guess that's just so you can physically see the soot your creating run down the outside of your pipe.

 

[webbie]

Let me play devils advocate here - there may be certain cases - some EPA non-cat stoves run VERY high stack temps.....so it is possible that the odd case might benefit (short inside piping, too much heat up the stack, etc.)...

Also, a NON epa can be even worse for this kind of thing, because we know that a lot of the smoke is going up the flue unburnt. So these can definitely attract the creostote!

Personally, we never sold them in our shop after about 1982.

Of course, I doubt many customers would be qualified to make an informed decision about their particular stove and installation being the right candidate....and that is one more reason why these things are generally discouraged.

 

[begreen]

DDT (don't do this!) They can be a creosote collector for sure. We had a posting recently of one that was installed in a horizontal run of pipe and ignited, setting the place on fire.
recent heat miser, magic heat thread
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/11343/

pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/gilphone/FIREINVERMONT12807

 

[Shane]

I could agree with Craig in some instances, if you have high enough stack temperatures that are sustained then maybe they'd have some value but overall I say no. It's strange that they're still selling them. Sandhill sells them but I don't think the "other" guys do.

 

[derbygreg]

Sandhill sells them but I don't think the "other" guys do.

How could you know about sandhill when you are so far away. It is just down the street from me. They must be a bigger business than I know of.

 

[webbie]

Sandhill started in New England and I think they were the first VC retail dealer ever. Story goes that they bought the stoves at retail and sold them at retail....just to be able to sell them! VC eventually relented.

Then they became a distributors (selling accessories to fireplace stores), mostly on the East Coast.

They eventually got sold once or twice, ending up in Ohio and doing the majority of their business supplying chimney sweeps....and also still some shops.

 

[buildingmaint]

I have a buddy who has one on his 12 year old wood stove and his cranks the heat. I started a thread about it last year and every one called it a creosote factory . So I told him about it and he became more diligent about checking for creosote build up and has not had a problem with it . He runs his stove hot with well seasoned wood.

 

[Todd]

I used one years ago on both a non EPA and EPA stove. The results were the same, dripping gooey creosote onto the hearth. Also massive amounts of crap in the chimney.

 

[Shane]

Sandhill sells them but I don't think the "other" guys do.

How could you know about sandhill when you are so far away. It is just down the street from me. They must be a bigger business than I know of.

We used to buy various supplies from them. Sent us a catalog every year, I'm pretty sure most of the sweeps and shops around here know about them. That's cool they're down the road from you it's always neat when you see something local on the national leval.

 

[begreen]

My first VC stove came with a SandHill thermometer. I still have and use it.

 

[DiscoInferno]

I could see something like that in a lot of ZC fireplaces, since they have at most a few inches of exposed pipe. Compare that to a freestanding stove with 8' of single-wall pipe, which has to be at least as bad. I know I'm losing heat up the chimney, but luckily I still get enough out to heat the house and the wood is plentiful and free.

 

[Mike Wilson]

EPA stoves are designed to work within a specific draft range... alter that draft, and you lower the efficiency of the stove, thus creating more creosote. Exhaust gasses generate a spiral as they rise up the flue... anything that interrupts that spiral lessens the draft, which lowers the amount of air coming into your stove through wither the primary or secondary air inlets. Skip it... you are already getting a significant amount of heat from the EPA stove, the small amount of heat that this device might add can be obtained in other ways.

-- Mike

 

[DiscoInferno]

EPA stoves are designed to work within a specific draft range... alter that draft, and you lower the efficiency of the stove, thus creating more creosote. Exhaust gasses generate a spiral as they rise up the flue... anything that interrupts that spiral lessens the draft, which lowers the amount of air coming into your stove through wither the primary or secondary air inlets. Skip it... you are already getting a significant amount of heat from the EPA stove, the small amount of heat that this device might add can be obtained in other ways.

-- Mike

All true, but some of us have, if anything, excess draft (25' straight-shot chimney, no exposed pipe, and no easy way to install a damper). A pipe heat exchanger built into the top of my fireplace would both reduce draft some and reclaim some heat. I guess you could argue that Security designed the fireplace to operate as-is, which is fair. I just know that the temp of the pipe stub right before it goes into the chimney is essentially the same as my stovetop, whereas I've seen folks on here with more exposed pipe report 200 degree or more differences between pipe and stove. That's heat I'm losing up the chimney.